Deputy Says He Thought Gunfire Was Outside

MIAMI — The only armed sheriff’s deputy on campus during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, disputed on Monday that he violated police protocol by not entering the building to hunt down the gunman, and rebuked the sheriff for portraying him as a “coward.”

Scot Peterson, a former deputy with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, said in a statement released by his lawyer that he thought the gunfire originated from outside and reacted accordingly by waiting for the suspect there.

The sheriff’s office “trains its officers that in the event of outdoor gunfire one is to seek cover and assess the situation in order to communicate what one observes to other law enforcement,” said Peterson’s lawyer, Joseph A. DiRuzzo III.

His statement appeared to contradict the sheriff, Scott Israel, who said this past week that Peterson should have immediately charged the building instead of taking a position outside for more than four minutes while the shooting was taking place. Israel characterized Peterson’s inaction as doing “nothing.”

Peterson should have “went in, addressed the killer, killed the killer,” Israel said.

“Let there be no mistake, Mr. Peterson wishes that he could have prevented the untimely passing of the 17 victims on that day, and his heart goes out to the families of the victims in their time of need,” DiRuzzo said in a statement. “However, the allegations that Mr. Peterson was a coward and that his performance, under the circumstances, failed to meet the standards of police officers are patently untrue.”

It is unclear why Peterson nevertheless chose to retire Thursday after Israel placed him under internal investigation. Israel has said the investigation will continue despite the deputy’s departure. The sheriff’s office is under intense scrutiny over its response to the Feb. 14 shooting.

The office’s active shooter protocol says that on-scene deputies, without approval from a supervisor, “may” engage the gunman. That appears to give deputies discretion, but only to a point: They “may” choose not to go in if they know a door is armed with a large explosive device, for example, or if they know the only way into a building has a dangerous suspect immediately on the other side ready to shoot the deputy, Col. Jim Polan explained in written responses to questions.

Otherwise, deputies are expected to prioritize the lives of victims by trying to confront the gunman as quickly as possible.

Israel said that, on the day of the massacre, it appeared the shooting had begun and then continued outside the building, and that three people had died outside the school. But on Monday, his office said, “The shooting occurred inside.”

Peterson initially received a call of “firecrackers — and not gunfire” near the freshman building, the statement from his lawyer said.

The deputy and a school security specialist, Kelvin Greenleaf, left the building they were in and ran a couple of hundred yards north, according to DiRuzzo’s account. Once there, Peterson “took up a tactical position” in the corridor between two other buildings and was the first to advise the sheriff’s office dispatch that he heard gunshots. Peterson also initiated a “code red” to put the entire school on lockdown.

Peterson told the first police officer to arrive, from the Coral Springs Police Department, that he believed the gunman to be outside, DiRuzzo said. The officer took up a position behind a tree with a rifle about 20 yards from the deputy.

“'Radio transmissions indicated that there was a gunshot victim in the area of the football field,'” the statement said, apparently quoting Peterson, “which served to confirm Mr. Peterson’s belief ‘that the shooter, or shooters, were outside.'”

DiRuzzo also credited Peterson with “the presence of mind” to have administrators review surveillance camera footage to try to locate the gunman, and to provide his building keys and a diagram of the campus to specialized Coral Springs and Broward County units when they arrived.

Confusion over the surveillance footage caused Coral Springs officers to think they were viewing video in real time when in fact the images were on a 20-minute delay, and the suspect, Nikolas Cruz, had long fled the school on foot. He was arrested later on a residential street about 2 miles from campus.

Efforts since Feb. 17 to reach Greenleaf, the security specialist who might be able to corroborate Peterson’s account, have not been successful. DiRuzzo said Peterson plans to cooperate with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which has been directed by Gov. Rick Scott to investigate the local police response to the shooting. Peterson believes the investigation will “clear his name” after being “maligned” by the sheriff.

Before his effective resignation on Thursday, Peterson was often celebrated at the sheriff’s office as a well-performing school resource officer. A review of his personnel file, which the office released in full Friday, showed decades of annual reviews in which he was judged to have met or exceeded expectations.

“He values his position and takes pride in protecting the students, faculty and staff at his school,” a sergeant wrote last year. “Deputy Peterson is dependable and reliable and handles issues that arise with tact and solid judgment.”